Just desserts

What a home-coming. Beers on the beach at sunset, Pink furry handcuffs, nipple tassels and horseradish sauce instead of yoghurt . All of these things contributed towards a memorable return to my spiritual home in the south of France.

But let me start at the beginning. Arriving into Nice airport into 15 degrees and blue sky, it was the most natural thing in the world to divert to nearby St Laurent du Var to have a couple of beers and watch the sun go down beside a deep blue sea. I have been away too long. The misery of an English winter was suddenly forgotten and a long way away after just 2 beers sitting in the sunshine watching the Mediterranean unfold gently in front of us. The long-suffering Suzanne Butterfield and the long-term insufferably optimistic Peachy were at the airport to meet us and required almost no persuasion at all to divert in search of a south of France special moment.

Even just flying into Nice Airport is uplifting

There was a special moment again as we arrived at our house and I found my kilt and managed to get it on. I had been a little concerned that a period of good living and a rather too intimate acquaintance with quality English beer may have caused me to muscle up sufficiently to preclude my being shoe horned into it, but all was well. I could hardly breathe but all was well.

The kilt was a hit. Burns Night with Roly and Poly Bufton was an even bigger hit with champagne, great found, wonderful company, the essence of the south of France, but most of all good gossip.

The gossip flowed as much as the wine. It seems that when clearing out one of the Sprogs bedrooms ( I cannot name him as he is my only son) that Nice Lady decorator found in one if the drawers, a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs. It seems that our Sprog must have secured his pair from a job lot as another son of some of our close friends made exactly the same discovery when their son went off to university. I cannot reveal the name of The miscreant but his parents, “Slash and burn” Thornton Allan and his steely eyed beauty of a wife Lisa will know the name of their first-born.

At this stage Peachy stood up and admitted that he too had a pair of furry handcuffs but was precluded from using then because he could not open the packaging. More distressing is that he then claimed to be the proud owner if a pair of nipple tassels but again has been unable fully to enjoy the benefits they may bestow because he couldn’t get them open. I have so missed the rich stream of information and embarrassment upon which this column feeds.

Better was to come as we were treated to an in-depth analysis of the action required to ensure that the nipple tassels fulfilled their raison d’être. It seems that one must gyrate ones hips in an anti clockwise direction whilst trying to ensure ones tassels revolved in a clockwise detection, or it could have been the other way around, I don ‘t think it matters. Several attempts to demonstrate the action required were made by some of the guests, well, one in particular, but I forgive her as she is my wife.

Then there was the horseradish sauce which was not yoghurt and which that Nice Lady Decorator had applied liberally to her desert. She has in the past insisted on ruining strawberries by smothering them in black pepper so I thought it was another of these strange quirks. I think, if you were I, and writing this column, and trying and failing to find some way of mentioning the benefits of Currencies Direct, you may contend that she got her just desserts.